DECEMBER 23, 2024 | composed by STEVE ULRICH

News and notes on the largest and best Division in the NCAA. #whyD3
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🎄 A Holiday Break. This is the final D3Playbook for 2024. I thank you for your support and wish you and your family a safe, happy and healthy holiday season and a Happy 2025! We’ll be back on January 2.

Headlines
🏈 Mount Union and North Central in Stagg Bowl
🥍 Scholarship Boom or Bust for College Lacrosse
🤼‍♂️ Wrestling (M) Rankings
🎅 Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

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TOP STORY
1. Back Where They Hoped To Be

by Mike Popovich, Canton Repository

“Any doubts over the Mount Union football team's ability to make it to the finish line have been dismissed.

After a one-year absence and a challenging regular season, the Purple Raiders are back where they always hoped to be.

Mount Union held off Johns Hopkins 45-37 on Saturday to a earn a berth in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl for the 23rd time. The Purple Raiders will face North Central for the NCAA Division III national title on Jan. 5 in Houston.

This was one of the most difficult roads any Mount Union team has taken to a Stagg Bowl. The Purple Raiders squeezed out some narrow wins to finish the regular season 10-0. Their playoff run has included two tight games and a road trip.”

» What They’re Saying. "Obviously we were going to be counted out from last season based on the finish, but no one could really see inside the locker room," running back Tyler Echeverry said. "The guys we had and how tight-knit the group is, that's just a huge part of it. All these guys love each other and there's no bad blood in the locker room. It's just a great team."

» Read More

FOOTBALL
2. North Central Advances to Fifth Straight Championship Game

by Stan Goff, Arlington Heights Daily Herald

“They say practice makes perfect so North Central College football had to feel pretty good heading into Saturday afternoon’s NCAA Division III semifinal showdown with visiting Susquehanna University from Pennsylvania.

The unbeaten and top-ranked Cardinals took the field in Naperville off one of their best weeks of practice so they liked their chances of advancing to a fifth straight Stagg Bowl championship game.

Even so, no one could have predicted the utter dominance they displayed while routing the River Hawks (12-2) 66-0. The numbers and the stats are staggering, as the hosts jumped ahead 21-0 after one quarter, led 49-0 at the half and finished the day with 9 touchdowns, 638 yards of offense and a shutout from a defense that has played well all year and has now allowed just 3 points in its last two playoff games.”

» Quotable. “Hats off to them. Their kids play football the right way, Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. And we know which side we were on today,” Susquehanna head coach Tom Perkovich said. “That's the best team I've ever gone against by a pretty large margin in 21 years of doing this.”

» Keep Reading

LACROSSE
3. A Scholarship Boom or a Financial Bust For College Lacrosse?

by Justin Feil, USA Lacrosse Magazine

“A potential NCAA antitrust settlement could mean a scholarship boom for lacrosse — or a financial bust.

The filing of formal settlement documents between the NCAA and the power conferences last Friday in the Northern District Court of California — the next step forward in trying to resolve three class-action lawsuits — has raised more uncertainty than anything.

“Business as we've known it in the world of college athletics is going to change,” Duke women’s lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel said. “And anybody who thinks they know what this is going to look like in real time, they're kidding themselves.”

» Field Awareness. “The $2.8 billion settlement that addresses House v. NCAA, Hubbard v. NCAA and Carter v. NCAA opens the potential for a huge increase in scholarships in lacrosse. The NCAA would replace scholarship limits with roster caps based on the average roster size for each sport, with every athlete eligible to receive a scholarship. The scholarship allotment for Division I men’s and women’s lacrosse would jump from 12.6 to 48 and from 12 to 38, respectively, based on new roster limits.”

» Smart Take. “Nobody has a money tree in their backyard,” said IWLCA president Kelly Gallagher, the head women’s lacrosse coach at Division II Tampa. “So if schools are definitely adding the 20 additional scholarships to football, where is the money going to come from to get to whatever that number is for their women's lacrosse team?”

» A Tiered System. “An idea floated out frequently is a tier system. The tiering of sports would be done by each school. A first group could increase scholarships to something like 25, former Denver head coach Bill Tierney said. A second group could continue to support what previously existed. A third group would remain in Division I but not even match the 12.6/12 scholarships limit. A fourth group would eliminate scholarships and go club. And the fifth level that drops lacrosse entirely.”

» Roster Limits. “Roster limits will also impact programs. The trickle-down effect could send more players to Division II and III teams, or traditionally smaller Division I teams. “Now with the scholarship money that's out there, it makes our job harder to pull in that person who's teetering on the fence of D-I or D-III,” said Kate Livesay, coach of NCAA Division III women’s lacrosse champion Middlebury. “It becomes harder to go D-III and pass up on what could be a really nice scholarship.”

» Quotable. “The whole landscape is definitely something that you scratch your head and you wonder what's going on there and who's making some of these decisions,” former Drexel head coach Brian Voelker said. “And does anybody know what it's like to be a college lacrosse coach or a college field hockey coach or a softball coach or track coach?”

» Coming in January: A brand-new newsletter from the D3Playbook family devoted to DIII men’s and women’s lacrosse.

» Continue Reading

WRESTLING
4. Wartburg Tops Last Dual, Tournament Rankings of 2024

» Top-Ranked Individuals. 125-Joziah Fry (JWU), 133-Chase Randall (Coast Guard), 141-Jacob Reed (ONU), 149-Charles Dojan (Wartburg), 157-Michael Petrella (BWU), 165-Matt Lackman (Alvernia), 174-Jared Stricker (UWEC), 184-Sampson Wilkins (Castleton), 197-Massoma Endene (Wartburg), 285-Michael Douglas (UWL).

» Go Deeper

NEWS YOU CAN USE
5. Lightning Round ⚡️ 

🏈 Football. The head coach of the 2023 DIII champion Cortland Red Dragons has resigned. Curt Fitzpatrick has accepted the head coaching position at Colgate.

💰️ Money. It’s not just small colleges facing financial challenges. Brown University is looking to hold down faculty growth to 1% and freeze its unrestricted staff headcount as it tries to reduce a structural budget deficit projected at $90 million.

✡️ Appreciation. Our condolences to the family and friends of former CUNYAC commissioner Ted Hurwitz who passed away last week. May his memory be a blessing.

TRANSACTIONS
6. Comings and Goings

• AVERETT - Olivia Earls resigned as head women’s volleyball coach

• CORTLAND - Curt Fitzpatrick resigned as head football coach

• ELMIRA - Wendi Hammond named assistant softball coach

• GALLAUDET - Emelia Beldon named head women’s flag football coach

• KALAMAZOO - Mike Haines named head men’s soccer coach

• MACALESTER - Ted Lauer resigned as head tennis coach

• MANCHESTER - Jamie Peters named head women’s soccer coach

• MARIETTA - Thomas Hinkle named interim head football coach

• OLIVET - Erik Ieuter named head football coach

• THIEL - Isaac Collins named director of athletics

• WASHINGTON & JEFFERSON - Ryan Hilyer named assistant men’s lacrosse coach

1 THING
7. Happy Holidays

In 1897, a child asks a trusted newspaper about the existence of Santa Claus and an anonymous editor answers. “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”

» Why It Matters. “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to our life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, maybe 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the hearts of children.”

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